I am teaching English at a high school in a different part of Budapest. To get there from the Central European University (CEU) I take a train with stations that are decorated with orange and red interiors. The other day, along with one of the officially employed teachers, I suggested that we read “The Old
CategoryStudent Academic Life
6 Degrees Berlin: A Recap
On Monday, November 12th, I headed from Pankow to Pierre Boulez Saal at the Barenboim-Said Akademie with my classmates from the Global Citizenship course to attend a workshop organized by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship with a prominent guest list. I had skimmed through the programme a couple of days before and saw that participants
Why are we here?
Dear Bard College Berlin community, You are where you are today because approximately twenty-one years ago, three people had one idea. They had studied at top universities in the US or Great Britain, returned to Germany, and met while working at consulting firms. They were impressed with the education they had received abroad and expressed
Uniting behind a cause? On trying to turn frustration into political action at the ‘Rescue the Rescuers’ demonstration
BCB is a community full of people who are highly engaged with politics. Many of us take classes on theoretical or practical aspects of the public sphere, many of us want to pursue politics-related careers, one civic engagement initiative comes after the other, and our cafeteria gives place to countless post-Socratic dialogues on the ideal
From the Archives – Portraits
What do alumni Aya Ibrahim and Tuvshinzaya Gantulga have in common with students Wafa Mustafa (BA3), Mais Hriesh (who has since graduated from Bard NY) and the once-neighboring “Family Without Borders” who now resides in Budapest? Aside from the fact that they all appear in this email, at some point in the past three years
Don’t Bother with SparkNotes (the Book is Better)
Tomorrow the reading is due. Flipping through the required pages reveals it as lengthy, dense, and probably confusing. Upcoming essays, presentations, and group projects have buried you up to your neck and, of course, to stay afloat a shortcut seems necessary. It’s a waste of time to read when a summary can be found with
You are your grades – the quantified self
The Chinese government intends to create a social credit system by the year 2020. Data about the behavior of each individual from all social spheres of life shall be collected, evaluated and transformed into a personal score. Consumption, traffic offenses, activities on the internet, employment contracts, ratings at school and work, conflicts with the landlord
Comedy in Crazy Blood: Satire, Stereotypes, and the Hypocrisy of “Enlightenment Values”
Last spring, I studied abroad in Berlin and had the opportunity to see a hilarious and thought-provoking piece of original theatre: Verrücktes Blut. The morally ambiguous play was, suffice to say, one of the most intelligent and funniest plays I’ve seen in a long time. I had the chance to see it as part of